


John and Mary Meet

by youkofujima



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Drug Use, Genderbending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multiple Worlds, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 03:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12099720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youkofujima/pseuds/youkofujima
Summary: John and Mary meet.What happens next?If you want a happy ending, try A.-Margaret Atwood, "Happy Endings"Kotetsu and Yuri meet, fall in love, and then what happens in several universes as they are all the same people and yet different.





	John and Mary Meet

**Author's Note:**

> This was a fic I wrote in 2011 that I still think is one of my best works. It's more fun to write about pain haha.

 

John and Mary meet.  
What happens next?  
If you want a happy ending, try A.  
—Margaret Atwood, “Happy Endings”

The newspapers would swell with this tomorrow. The forums online would be abuzz with an equally swelled-up headline, exaggerating the events. But right now, all that went through Kotetsu’s head was the figure leaping and flitting through the air in front of him in a blur of blue, green, and gray. Even at the end of his one-minute time limit, he didn’t give up pursuing the thin silhouette against the contrast of the red moon hanging overhead. Under the thick protection of his helmet, he heard his own tinny little voice mutter about how inconvenient it was that he could no longer call for back-up from his first-string allies now that he was in second-string. They had probably already been summoned, but there was no time. If he didn’t catch Lunatic now, the man would get away. Why the hell did Lunatic decide to show up during a second-string job, anyway? He clenched his teeth and strained to get as much mileage as he could out of his enhanced legs, each step ticking precious time away.

“Lunatic!” he shouted as both of them reached the last roof along the edge of Sternbild’s Gold Stage. Lunatic bent in that awful, unnatural way of his to peer down at the waters below, then turned to face Kotetsu.

“Why did you kill McBane?!” Kotetsu demanded, pointing accusingly at the figure before him, who didn’t make a move to escape. ”He was just shoplifting!”

“Yes,” that abysmally disturbing voice answered. ”Of course you Heroes wouldn’t know that before becoming McBane, that man was Yurst, the scion of an investment company, who dismembered his neighbour. Sinners like him deserve the wrath of Thanatos.”

Kotetsu took a step back. The murder case to which he was referring had occurred a good three years ago. Yurst had been declared at-large, but unlikely to be living in Sternbild. No one would be stupid enough to remain in the city where he’d committed that crime—but then again, maybe that was what Yurst wanted them to believe. Lunatic had probably been stalking the man for that long, awaiting an opportunity like this.

His thin shadow suddenly multiplied as police helicopters appeared, showering them both with light.

“Lunatic!” an officer shouted over the intercom as the helicopter door slid open to reveal a sniper poised and ready, “The first string heroes are coming, we have you surrounded! Resistance is futile!”

Lunatic cocked his head in a way that Kotetsu could have sworn meant a very exasperated rolling of eyes beneath that creepy mask.

“Hey!” Kotetsu shouted. ”I was supposed to make this arrest!”

“Your powers have probably run out already.” Agnes’ voice appeared over his helmet’s intercom. ”Just stay there and stall him until the first-string heroes arrive. We’ll give you enough credit.”

“That’s not the point—” Kotetsu started to protest but stopped the moment he saw Lunatic move. The police didn’t miss it either, and the sniper’s gun cocked loudly over the helicopter’s megaphone. Slowly, Lunatic reached for his crossbow and arrows.

The voice over the megaphone sounded no less scared, and Kotetsu furrowed his brows. He might not have wanted to admit it, but Lunatic did a good job at raising his heart rate whenever the two of them met up, and for good reason. He wondered if the police were ignorant of just how destructive the man was.

“Any attempts to use your powers will be met with force!” the police warned again. It was hard to make out over the roar of the helicopter, but Kotetsu could swear that very low voice muttered something as a gloved hand moved towards the holster on his belt again.

  
The next few seconds happened in a flash. Lunatic raised a lit arrow towards the helicopter, but from Kotetsu’s angle, he could tell the man was aiming to miss. The sniper, all his years of training going down the drain in one panicked moment, fired. Lunatic moved fast, and conjured up enough flames to melt the bullet before it hit him.

Something whizzed past Kotetsu’s head. If he’d been standing a millimeter more to the left, the bullet would have grazed his helmet, and most likely would have taken out the force of the bullet. Then, the bullet would not have torn through Lunatic’s trapezius, passed by his lung, shattered a rib, and exited his chest with a splash of red. Whirling around, Kotetsu spotted another police sniper, a more well-hidden one, lying on that little house thing that every roof had. The sniper’s face was young, and his eyes were both excited and frightened by the hunt.

Lunatic stumbled, lost his footing, and leaned forward over the ledge of the roof.  
Kotetsu shouted something that lost its effect (like the way the bullet would have, had he been standing just a millimeter more to the left) to the roar of the helicopter, and rushed forward to catch him just a bit too late. His hand grazed the bottom of the mask instead of the collar of the cape, latched on with the first segments of his fingers, and pulled.  
A flurry of silvery gray joined the spray of red.

“YURI!”

The bay waters below opened up ready and waiting, the cold blackness eager to extinguish the blue-green flames.

Kotetsu woke up.

The television murmured the morning news at a low volume, promising cold temperatures despite the sunny day. The pretty female anchor with a mole below her lip (and too-heavy makeup) then announced the highlights of the race to the upcoming presidential election. Next to him, the smell of Blue Mountain roast coffee wafted, and Kotetsu tilted his head, straining his eyes against the sun. The beams of light wrapped themselves around the figure sitting up next to him. Kotetsu had to squint, since his bed partner’s silvery gray hair proved to be a very good colour to reflect light and create a halo effect. Kotetsu reached over and touched the short-cropped hair, running his fingers through the curls not given enough length to really curl, and lingered at the ends, almost expecting more despite the fact that the man had never worn his hair long in all the days Kotetsu had known him.

“Good morning,” the man said in his smooth voice, sipping fresh coffee while his other hand stroked their cat, Bunny.

“Morning, Yuri,” Kotetsu answered, still dazed. A sideways glance told him that Yuri had fixed him a mug of coffee as well, and set it on the bedside table on his corner of the bed. Right now, however, it just conjured up images of dark bay waters, and his stomach turned. He rubbed his face wearily and groaned, prompting Yuri to set down his mug and lean over with concern in his pale green eyes.

“I had a dream,” Kotetsu mumbled heavily, morning dry-mouth weighing down his tongue. Not a man to waste an opportunity, he touched Yuri’s hair again and slipped his hand to the slow, steady pulse on the pale throat. Yuri brushed the hair out of Kotetsu’s eyes, then reached under his own pillow, pulling out a notebook.

“What happened this time?” he asked as he set a pair of reading glasses over the bridge of his nose and opened the notebook. Kotetsu could never read what Yuri wrote, since the man always took his notes in Russian, but ever since his run-in with convenience store robbers armed with a Desert Eagle (said Desert Eagle nearly killing him after tearing through his lung with a shot), he’d been having vivid, inexplicably disturbing dreams. The psychiatrist the unit recommended him suggested that it was probably some sort of repressed stress showing up in his subconscious. If it wasn’t affecting the actual hours Kotetsu slept, she reasoned that there was very little harm in it.

“I still don’t see why you’re taking records of my dreams,” Kotetsu said, his hand traveling down to Yuri’s chest, feeling the thump-thump of a healthy heart under slightly chilly skin. Yuri was always a bit cold.

“Because you’re obsessing over this dream, and I don’t believe a single word of psychobabble coming out of Dr. Ginny’s mouth,” Yuri spat the police-assigned psychiatrist’s name out like it was something dirty.

“I don’t want you shrinking me, though,” Kotetsu groaned like a kid being told to take his vaccine like a man. But his eyes told Yuri that just a bit more prodding would get him to open up, since sometimes Kotetsu did like talking about these dreams, especially if they involved him as the superhero Wild Tiger, running around chasing down criminals, and trying to find out the identity of the vigilante Lunatic. The dreams were as vivid as though another life, or a very exciting action film. Kotetsu even thought off-handedly of tossing it to some film production studio, should he ever decipher Yuri’s Cyrillic and pry that damn moleskin out of his hands.

“Did Wild Tiger save the day again?” Yuri asked, thumbing through the pages and clicking the pen below his bottom lip.

“Sorta.”

“Elaborate.”

“Um, well, see,” Kotetsu reached for his coffee and sat up gingerly as though he HAD been running over rooftops the entire night. “I was chasing Lunatic, right? He just set fire to some loon who hid himself in the same city where he committed the crime, and like—I was chasing him over rooftops.

“So we get to the edge of this one house that was on the very very tip of this city we live in. This Ster—stern—Sternbild, or however you call it. Anyway, I confront Lunatic and we’re talking and stuff, and then suddenly the police show up!

“They babble about how they’re gonna have me stall Lunatic until the first-tier heroes get there, since my powers have run out and I can’t handle the guy by myself anymore, you know?”

  
Yuri nodded, his hand scribbling as though it were a different entity. Kotetsu shuddered.

“So, um.” Kotetsu wetted his lips with a quick flick of his tongue before continuing. “Lunatic wanted to escape, so he aimed to miss the helicopter—the helicopter the cops were on—but then the sniper on the helicopter FREAKS OUT and fires, but Lunatic melts that bullet and then this thing whizzes by my FACE and—“

He stopped, and stared at Yuri. Yuri, who was alive and looking at him, encouraging him to continue with that look in his green eyes.

“Oh god,” Kotetsu murmured.

“Kotetsu, what happened?” Yuri asked, a hint of personal curiosity slipping into his voice.

“The police—the other sniper…SHOOTS Lunatic, so he starts falling and I go and grab him cuz I don’t want him to just DIE, and like…it’s so cheesy, but I end up grabbing his mask and yanking it off him as he fell.”

“And?”

Kotetsu’s breath caught in his throat. The sensation in his hand was still solid, like he’d been holding the mask the whole time, staring dumbfounded at Lunatic’s—Yuri’s—bloody face the whole time. In an attempt to mentally wipe it off, he put his hand on Yuri’s thigh, feeling how solid and real it was.

“You’re real, right?”

“Kotetsu, what happened?” Yuri asked, now shutting the notebook and covering Kotetsu’s hand with his own, avoiding the wedding band.

“It was you,” Kotetsu mumbled, unable to believe it himself even though it was just a dream. The sense of betrayal punched dully in his gut, somehow made stronger only because it was Yuri, his Yuri, who was sitting there on the bed in the apartment they shared. Yuri, who worked endlessly and tirelessly to help children of abuse, of neglect, or even just of their silly little first world problems sometimes, was the man under the murderer’s mask. Kotetsu shuddered again to think about it. “You were Lunatic.”

Thin, slightly bloodless lips pursed tightly, and Yuri snapped the elastic band over the moleskin, tucking it back under his pillow. “Kotetsu.”

“I tried to save you,” Kotetsu insisted. “I just—“

“Kotetsu, look at me,” Yuri said, his hands reaching up and grabbing Kotetsu’s face, his thumbs tracing over the strange little beard and the fuzz that Kotetsu would take care to shave meticulously once they both get out of bed. “I’m here, I’m alive, and that was a dream.”

Kotetsu nodded.

“Though I have to say, your subconscious probably hates me,” Yuri muttered with a small sigh and a quirk at the edge of his lips. “Here, I am a murdering vigilante who meets his end after getting shot by the police—“ He petted Bunny, who purred and nudged his hand for more.

“Yuri, I—“

“And in the other dream you had, I was a what—“

“A guy who hunted people with special powers.”

“And this was AFTER you decided to wipe my mind with your powers. And you also got into a relationship with the male underwear model.”

“Hey! You said yourself that Barnaby Brooks Jr is very attractive!” Kotetsu protested, sending Bunny hissing and shrieking, bounding off the bed reproachfully.

“I did, but I’m not the one who has VERY specific, vivid dreams involving very passionate intercourse with him.”

“You’re pissed at me,” Kotetsu said. “You’re using very large words, you’re pissed.”

“I assure you, I’m not,” Yuri said, his tone pleasant. He leaned in and kissed Kotetsu on the cheek, then patted his hand. “Come on, let’s get up. You have to be down at the station, and I have to be at the office in thirty minutes.”

With a small, indignant huff Kotetsu swung his long legs over the edge of the bed and got up, stretching leisurely. He slid on his room slippers, careful to avoid kicking Bunny, who liked to sleep on them, and padded over to the bathroom. His eyes followed Yuri’s reflection in the large mirror as he dressed swiftly behind him, ready and done by the time Kotetsu finally managed to wash the shaving foam off his face and apply aftershave. He shooed Bunny away to keep the cat from leaving cream-coloured fur on his new black slacks.

“Yuri,” he said, staring at his reflection in the mirror the way he did when he was asking Yuri a very big favour. “You’ll tell me if something is wrong, right?” He fastened his tie with a slick swoosh upwards.

“Of course,” Yuri answered, knowing exactly what Kotetsu meant. But he didn’t meet Kotetsu’s eyes. Kotetsu took into account that they weren’t really looking at each other’s eyes anyway, talking through the mirror. “I have to go now, the Richards child is getting more and more withdrawn. He’ll think I gave up on him if I’m late.” Kotetsu nodded as he checked his gun, fastened the holster onto his shoulders, and shrugged on his blue uniform jacket.

“Very sharp, sheriff,” Yuri said, smiling. Kotetsu loved that smile. He kissed Yuri softly, letting his beard scratch against Yuri’s cheek. The two of them stood in a silent, loose embrace for a generous minute, Bunny’s purrs the only sound in the room, then moved backwards away from each other.

“I love you,” Kotetsu said as Yuri picked up his briefcase and headed to the garage first.  
Yuri glanced at his hand where Kotetsu toyed with his wedding band and nodded softly.

“I do, too.”

Kotetsu didn’t have the heart—never had the heart—to tell him that in this world of superheroes and villain-chasing, Yuri’s father was exactly the same as he was in this waking world.

That was all right, though, since Yuri never told Kotetsu about the bottles upon bottles of prescription pills he was signing for non-existent patients in his name.

Kotetsu was dreaming again. He was sure of it, because nowhere in his wildest dreams could he imagine himself sitting in such an expensive-looking foreigner hostess club. But his colleagues and best friends paid for him, clamouring about how he should have a good time during the last month before the old ball-and-chain locked around his ankle. The music in the club was a bit too loud, and the food too expensive, but the drinks weren’t as watered-down as some of the other pubs and all-you-can-drink deals he’d run into during previous company parties, and Kotetsu settled down to enjoy himself. A few hostesses shuffled towards the large round booth seat Kotetsu’s party tucked themselves into and plopped down next to the richest-looking members of Kotetsu’s department. The women spoke loudly over the blaring music, cooing and giggling at everything the chief of department said, hoping for more tips. Their Japanese was slightly glitchy, reminding Kotetsu of how his computer translator sounded when he input something for English. When a French woman with luxurious brown hair sashayed towards Antonio, Kotetsu shifted on his seat to give her room. Antonio was a regular at this club, apparently, throwing his monthly salary away on this French hostess. Now feeling quite ignored, Kotetsu sighed into his empty glass.

Which is something he would have done if his glass hadn’t been taken from him to be filled by the hostess who seemingly materialized out of nowhere. Jolting in his place at the sudden appearance of the seat-intruder, Kotetsu let out a small yelp that drew a look of contemptuous confusion from the woman. Her dainty, if not slightly bony, fingers stirred his drink, and he took it from her with a small nod of thanks. Despite the heavy mist of cigarette smoke and alcohol, Kotetsu was taken aback by how little she smelled. The perfume from Antonio’s French hostess was drowning him, and he coughed. The hostess who mixed Kotetsu’s drink handed him a handkerchief, as though understanding exactly what predicament he suffered.

She never took even a sip of the alcohol, her profession as a hostess notwithstanding. Kotetsu found that he didn’t mind. When he put his hand on her thigh, she didn’t seem to mind, even though all the signs around the club reminded happy patrons that this club was not THAT kind of club.

A week later he would find out at the coffee machine at work that she was killed by her alcoholic father after a series of unfortunate events. From the mouth of Antonio, a jealous patron apparently threw bleach in her face, disfiguring her. Her livelihood as a hostess halted, the landlord had no hesitation in throwing a dysfunctional family of foreigners out of his apartment, regardless of the fact the hostess still had enough savings to pay for at least three month’s rent. However, the landlord never quite evicted them, instead being required to call the police when he opened the door to the apartment to find the large Russian man standing over his daughter, her head bashed in by a bottle, blood caking her silver-gray hair. In the back room, a frail old woman would cry her name—a name Kotetsu never even learned on that night he sat with her and drank with her for hours.

Kotetsu would go on to get married, but the moment he lifted Tomoe’s veil, he would think instead of that hostess he met, and how she smelled of absolutely nothing.

At least, that is what he would have done, if he had not woken up.

Kotetsu’s eyes opened, his body jerking just a bit into wakefulness. For a moment, he thought his arm was gone, and that he was suffocating, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw Yuri (male, alive, and asleep) on his arm, and Bunny (cat, cream-coloured, slightly bitchy) curled up on his chest. Bunny awoke when Kotetsu stirred, and leapt off of him, green eyes glowing in the darkness of the room. The digital clock read 3:48, so Kotetsu figured Yuri would be awake in probably another hour.

“Yuri,” he murmured, stroking Yuri’s cheek. In the darkness, he could barely see, but he always knew that scar was there on Yuri’s face. The one that happened when Yuri’s father pressed Yuri’s face a bit too close to the stove burner the day Yuri decided he could no longer watch his father beat his mother. Kotetsu shifted in bed, letting the contours of their bodies align as much as Yuri’s bony figure allowed. He wanted to ask him about the concern Nathan showed that morning at the office, but knew it wasn’t his place to stick his nose into Yuri’s business.

“Yuri,” he said softly to his slumbering audience. “Nathan said that he’s been filling out a lot of prescriptions for you for sleeping pills and antidepressants. Is everything okay at work? Is all of PS 180 going insane or something?” He stifled a chuckle to himself at the ridiculousness of it all, and then closed his eyes. Carefully, as to not wake him up any earlier than necessary, Kotetsu pulled Yuri towards him, clutching him and breathing him in. He smelled like nothing.

For the next hour, he held Yuri (male, alive, but awake and only pretending to sleep), unable to fall back to sleep, afraid of what other worlds he’d see. He didn’t tell Yuri about this one. He didn’t tell Yuri a lot of things. He eventually fell asleep.

All of Tetsuko’s friends told her that she should give up and go date Tomoya, the student council president, who was nice with rich, emotional eyes. Tomoya, who wasn’t some foreigner whose father committed suicide after a dishonourable discharge from the military base up in Aomori. Yuri lived at the church-based orphanage while his mother stayed at an institution, while Tomoya lived in a nice one-family house with heated floors. But Tetsuko would have sworn on her life that there was something good in Yuri, that she’d seen him feed the school’s rabbits when the school pet caretaker of that week decided to bail. Her friends sighed, shook their heads and told her that she’s probably having some delusional dreams of a shoujo manga romance. They told her that she’d regret it.

“Why do you insist on talking to me?” Yuri asked one day, voice polite but cold and prickly enough to rival the early December weather. Crouched in front of the rabbit coop with the feed and wearing the indoor slippers outside made him appear both threatening and adorable at the same time in Tetsuko’s eyes. Tetsuko always resisted (with a megaton of effort, mind) running her hands through his silver-gray hair. She was willing to wager her entire superhero comic collection that his hair is softer than any of the rabbits in the coop. Now, she fought the temptation by kicking the dead leaves in front of her and taking a step back as Yuri stood up, patting off his track pants.

“Well, you look like you can use a friend,” Tetsuko announced, wrinkling the bandage on her nose as she grinned. Yuri did not look impressed. In fact, the dull glow in his eyes told Tetsuko, who’d had her share of looking at fighting eyes, that double-arm’s length was still within range of his personal space.

“Nothing good will come out of it,” Yuri sighed.

“Well, I’m not exactly trying to GAIN anything,” Tetsuko countered, slightly offended. If this was the way all foreigners acted, then she was right in never wanting to learn English and or wanting to leave Japan. Everyone acted as though they had spikes on their hearts. Even the new assistant language teacher, Mr Brooks, was about as cuddly as a porcupine on crack. She missed Mr. Goodman, whose contract ended last year just as Tetsuko managed to master telling him her name, the time, and the weather. Yuri shot her a sideways glance that held not a hint of animosity, but extreme distrust and confusion.

“You actually want to be my friend?” the bewilderment in his voice was thick.

“If you’d stop being a hedgehog for all of ten seconds and let me,” Tetsuko laughed, then finally reached out and ruffled his hair. Yuri stared at her, face a pale mask of suppressed embarrassment, and then stalked away quickly.

Eventually Tetsuko developed a habit of bringing Yuri lunches, since the boy never ate, and the orphanage couldn’t provide anything more than bread and milk out of necessity, so he wouldn’t die on their watch. He called her a busybody; she told him that sometimes the world needs busybodies.

Tetsuko’s brother Muramasa didn’t approve of their relationship, himself being one of the people who thought that Tetsuko should go with the nice Amamiya boy a few houses down. Sometimes, even Yuri wanted to give up, especially when he came to school one day to find Tetsuko standing by her desk, trying hard to hold back tears. Girls who used to call themselves her friends huddled by a corner, giggling amongst themselves for a job well done with the crude scribbles of slurs on the blackboard, drinking in Tetsuko’s misery. After school, after Tetsuko was told that she was no longer welcome at her basketball club by her teammates, Yuri took her to the back of the school and told her to stop.

“This relationship is not going to work out, stop it,” he said, keeping her at arm’s distance.

She glared at him defiantly.

“Everyone deserves a happy end,” she retorted hotly.

“There are no happy ends,” Yuri sighed. “There is only one authentic end for everyone and—“

Glare intensifying, Tetsuko dropped her no-longer useful basketball bag, and shortened the distance between them from arm’s length to none at all. The kiss sent prickles down Tetsuko’s spine, shooting embarrassment through her veins even though she’d initiated it. Pale arms held her tentatively, like she was a lie, but then tightened as the kiss deepened.

When they finally broke away, her hands already somehow found their way up Yuri’s crisp white shirt. His arms made a cross over her back, her sharp shoulder blades digging into his skin where he pressed into her, knuckles white with the vice grip on her shoulders. Their breaths puffed small and white clouds between the two of them for a brief moment before they stumbled into the gym equipment storage shed. Neither of them knew exactly what to do, but Tetsuko claimed to have seen enough obscene magazines procured by one of her former teammates to have a basic idea. What happened next made Yuri sure that her description of “a basic idea” was all a lie, but at least the body pressed against him was true. At least the kisses, the heat, the way she tore open his uniform shirt and rode him with reckless abandon, the way her uniform skirt chafed his skin as she bounced—at least those were all true.

When her period didn’t come for three weeks the next month, the Kaburagi family found a scrawled apology letter on her pillow in an empty room. The family shamed, they disowned her and the town whispered of a white devil who whisked young girls away for years after.

It was hard, at first. Even with medical insurance as citizens, neither of them knew that pregnancy and childbirth were not covered. Yuri could barely find a job washing dishes at restaurants despite his outstanding grades and fluent Japanese. Just a glance at his silver gray hair and green eyes made employers turn their noses. Tetsuko fared a bit better with finding a job at a convenience store, and was miraculously able to secure a very small shack of an apartment from a friendly foreign landlord. The landlord proved to be a blessing, helping Tetsuko deliver the baby in the tub when she went into labour.

Yuri and Tetsuko stayed in the small shack apartment and raised their daughter together. Their daughter turned out well, and loved skating. Yuri took on an extra construction site job, strained himself, and got her a pair of brand new skates when she turned eighteen. So eager was she to try them out that she took them to the lake before it was deemed safe to skate on. Her father chased after her, according to the neighbours, shouting in Russian as she glided further and further from him.

They never knew if he died from a heart attack from all the strain of keeping the family and working three jobs, if he drowned, or if he froze to death when saving his daughter the moment the thin ice no longer held her weight.

They never found the body.

Kotetsu jerked to wakefulness in his patrol car. A glance at his watch informed him he’d been asleep for the five minutes since Antonio disappeared into the Starbucks for their afternoon coffee. The prospect of a cream-filled donut was enticing five minutes ago, but now just the idea of biting into anything made Kotetsu feel ill. The dreams were probably a problem, he figured, now that it’s affecting his sleep and appetite. He put his hand onto his belly, then immediately removed it, shaking it fervently and hoping he wasn’t even attempting to feel for a child.

“God, this is getting crazy,” he muttered to no one in particular, pinching the bridge of his nose. The days always felt longer when he had those dreams, which, at this point, was all the time. Episodic, the dreams were mildly enjoyable, giving Kotetsu a sense that he was just tuning in to an exciting show whenever he closed his eyes. Now he can’t sleep for a few minutes without a whole lifetime flashing through his eyes. He groaned, wanting to just rent a movie, go home, take a shower, feed Bunny, and then order Chinese take-out when Yuri comes home so that Yuri doesn’t have to cook, watch that horror movie the newspapers were raving about, and cuddle with Yuri.

He nearly leapt out of his seat when his private cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Antonio wasn’t back yet, so Kotetsu picked up the phone and grinned when he saw the image of a snowman flash on the incoming call screen.

“Hey, nice timing!” he laughed into the phone. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Kotetsu,” Yuri gasped. He sounded like he’d run a marathon, his voice was so shaky and breathy. “Something happened. Come to the office and arrive like it’s a crime scene.”

Kotetsu dropped the phone and drove away, leaving Antonio stranded at the donut shop. (This later proved to be a blessing, as the pretty news anchor he had a crush on just happened to pull up five minutes later. She had a hankering for a bear claw, the last of which he bought but offered to her in a daze. He invited her for coffee. She accepted.)

The elevator never comes quickly enough during times when people need to rush anywhere, and Kotetsu didn’t expect it to come any faster for him now. The call from Yuri had been too strange, too shaky, and too cryptic for Kotetsu to not drop everything and rush to his office.

Why did Yuri give him that sort of call? Their anniversary wasn’t for another three months, and his birthday wasn’t for another eight, so there was no reason for some weird, wacky surprise. Kotetsu was a guy who loved surprises, but he liked to give them more than to receive them. Heck, the only time Yuri surprised him was really on special dates and it often involved instruments and positions so kinky Yuri often tossed Bunny out the room before performing.

This was not one of those times, Kotetsu was sure. The dream from five minutes ago, from the previous night on top of all the other nights weighed his legs down as he trekked up the stairs. A nagging feeling in his gut told him to expect the worst. Assuring himself that he was a seasoned police officer, that he’d seen the worst, and that he was trained for this, Kotetsu tightened his fist over the doorknob of Yuri’s office (set a bit lower than usual, so the children can open it easily, bless Yuri’s heart).

The reek of vomit and the sight before him sent Kotetsu slamming back against the door with a barely-contained sharp “Fuck!” escaping from his lips.

Seated on the large couch in his office, Yuri drew his knees up, curled the bridges of his feet just over the edge of the expensive coffee table in front of him, his shoes kicked off at the side. In his shaky arms, he clutched at a throw pillow his mother crocheted for him on one of her better days at the retirement home. A thick, sickly yellow trail seeped down the previously clean lace. His green eyes (god, why were they swimming like that) turned to glance at Kotetsu, acknowledging his presence, and then turned to client seated across the table from him. The man was a sharply-dressed late middle-aged gentleman with a head full of thick white hair. On his bulbous fingers were thick gold rings. Kotetsu couldn’t quite make out his facial features, however, since the man had his face planted on the table in a nice foamy, frothy soup of pill and whiskey vomit.

“Yuri,” Kotetsu murmured, his voice lost to the other offices due to the white noise machine Yuri had in his office. At the sound of his name, Yuri looked at Kotetsu again like he was a distraction, his entire body trembling like mad. The pillow in his arms made a strange ripple as he swallowed thickly. Kotetsu has only seen him sit like that once, when they were still living in Queens, when Yuri called him one late afternoon on a day he didn’t show up for class. The day his father died of alcohol poisoning, slumped over on the table in front of Yuri just like the way the man in his office did now.

“Yuri,” Kotetsu said again, approaching Yuri like he would explode any minute, and watched as Yuri swallowed again. His thin body lurched in an unnatural way, like the manner Bunny does before hacking up a hairball. Kotetsu shuddered at the image. “What happened here? Who is that?” His hand reached for his walkie-talkie, but Yuri’s hand, thin and lightning fast, shot out to grab him. The grip was shaky, and Yuri had to claw his nails into Kotetsu’s skin to hang on.

“D-don’t, not yet,” Yuri’s words came out a thick slur. A crooked smile found its way to his thin, pale lips, and Kotetsu’s blood ran cold. Everything pointed to the obvious, but he still waited for Yuri to explain. Still asked questions.

“Who is that?” he asked again.

“Albert Maverick,” Yuri answered, then swallowed again, this time looking like he was fighting it. Sweat poured down his face, but Kotetsu only touched cold and clammy skin when he felt for a fever.

“Albert Maverick, the entertainment tycoon? The guy who funded the orphanage you stayed at?”

Yuri nodded.

“Wh—why is he—“ Kotetsu stammered, then forced a nervous chuckle. “Oh I see. I see. God, Yuri, this is a bad joke, right? What is it today, it’s still a bit late for April Fool’s, I mean, come on, Mr. Maverick,” he turned to the man with his face still on the table and reached to flip him over, hoping the man would burst out laughing. “This isn’t really funny, I—“

Maverick made a heavy flop when Kotetsu turned him. The similarities to a dead fish didn’t end at how he flopped, but continued to the bulging, yellowish dead eyes right down to the thick colourless tongue that hung from his mouth.

“I thought I told you…to treat this like a crime scene.” Yuri’s broken, flat tone swam into Kotetsu’s ears.

“What happened?!!” Kotetsu screamed, not caring if the interns heard or not. “Why is—WHY—WHAT DID YOU DO, YURI?!”

He knew, though. He knew what Yuri did. All those pills, all those prescriptions, Yuri’s nervousness, and the whiskey. Oh god the whiskey, in Yuri’s office; Yuri, who never even touched a single drop of alcohol, with whiskey in his office. Kotetsu’s world spun and he hoped it was another dream he was having. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, but everything was still as it had been a split second ago.

“He takes children from his foster care and exploits them. Did you know that?” Yuri asked softly.

“What?” This was all happening too fast.

“You think he only has reality TV shows? You think he really funded orphanages out of the kindness of his heart? The pornography industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, Kotetsu.” Another swallow, thick and strained. Kotetsu was starting to feel ill from the rank in the room.

Comparatively, however, he felt sicker at the realization. Yuri was always withdrawn during middle school through college, and the first time he and Kotetsu kissed and Kotetsu’s hands roamed up Yuri’s shirt, Yuri’s scream was more than just virgin nervousness. No, that was not first time jitters that made Yuri stammer an awkward apology, not shyness or shame about his scar that made him always turn his face away even after they got used to sex.

“Oh god,” Kotetsu breathed. “Oh god. Oh god, oh god. Fuck. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.”

Barnaby Brooks Jr., prized alumni of one of Maverick’s orphanages, always looked so stiff while playing out love-making scenes in movies, always looked so scared.

“Shit. Shit. Oh god. No. Why?”

Whatever trace of composure Kotetsu had evaporated.

“Why didn’t you tell me?! Why did you—“ he motioned at the elephant in the room in the shape of a corpse.

“Would you have believed me? Would anyone have believed me?” Yuri asked, though he was obviously no longer talking to Kotetsu. Another swallow, but this time he lost and lurched forward, retching onto his legs and the pillow, the contents spilling from his stomach the same substance as the foamy white slop on his coffee table. Kotetsu grabbed his shoulders to steady him to keep him from falling over as he heaved, not caring that the bile was splashing onto his jacket, onto his front, his shoes.

“Yuri,” he gasped. “Yuri, what did you take? YURI! Yuri! I’m calling the ambulance!” The words rolled from his mouth in an avalanche in an effort to fill the silence as he pressed the call switch on his walkie-talkie. But the one thing that he really wanted to help fill the silence in the room was missing. Yuri slouched in his arms, eyes rolling back during his violent convulsions.

“Shit,” Kotetsu swore, swinging Yuri onto the crook of his arm to let him rest his head in the crook of his shoulder. He rushed to the door and kicked it open, screaming for the intern to help him open the doors of the fire escape—the elevator was always too slow. A platinum-blond head poked out of the secretary’s office, saw the scene, and immediately rushed to shove the emergency escape door open for Kotetsu.

In his arms, Yuri made a strange gagging sound, then jerked like he was trying and failing to breathe. Kotetsu lowered him to the ground at the next staircase landing and tried to clear his air passage. The young intern with purple eyes rushed downstairs to lead the paramedics to them.

“Yuri. Yuri, please,” Kotetsu begged.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to have gone home, taken a shower, ordered take-out, and had dinner with Yuri while watching a movie, with Bunny curled up between them. He was supposed to have told Yuri he was finally going to take off his wedding ring. He was supposed to have let Yuri meet his daughter, who lived with her mother in Pennsylvania. He was supposed to have asked Yuri about those prescriptions, to have gotten the truth out of him and then slapped him around a bit for making such stupid plans as killing a man. He was supposed to have brought said evil man to justice, then kissed Yuri when it was all over, and continued with Yuri’s healing process. Yuri wasn’t supposed to be dying in his arms, choking on his own vomit after having poisoned a man to death. His Yuri shouldn’t be doing this. All the others did.

Yuri, who was beaten to death by a drunken father. Yuri, who fell into the bay after being shot by a police sniper. Yuri, who died in a house fire after his father fell asleep from smoking cigarettes in bed. Yuri, who drowned (or died of a heart attack, or froze to death). Yuri, whom Kotetsu himself shot after chasing him down in an alleyway for murder.

Yuri, who was growing cold in his arms, already pale face turning even paler, bile and cocktail of pills lining his lips, image growing blurry in Kotetsu’s eyes as tears poured from them.

“Yuri.”

  
Kotetsu woke up with a start. His eyes rolled around, taking in his surroundings as the stiffness of sleep made itself known in his muscles. Testing his coordination, he flexed the fingers of his outstretched arms where someone had slept on them the night before. The morning grogginess made his movements sluggish, and he mumbled a complaint about his age as he got up, put on his PDA, and kicked on his slippers.

From downstairs, the smell of Blue Mountain coffee wafted up, and he tread slowly down.

“Morning,” he yawned.

The man in his kitchen turned and gave him a soft smile that graced more in the green eyes than the lips.

“Good morning, Kotetsu,” he said. “How is your head?”

“Lousy,” Kotetsu answered, rolling his neck to get the kink out, sore after being reminded. “The sniper has lousy aim, egging me in the head like that.”

“At least you’re all right.”

“Hey! I got a concussion, all right?! And this huge bump in my head, and a nasty whiplash! Plus, that guy got away!!”

“That’s not what you said last night.”

Kotetsu scoffed. “Whatever, just give me the coffee.” He took the mug from a pale hand gratefully, then took a long, appreciative sip. Grinning, he wound a free arm around a muscular but lean waist and let perfect blond curls tickle his face, careful not to upset those designer brand glasses. He took a deep breath, taking in the scent of his partner.

He smelled like ocean cologne and coffee.

The [Authentic] End [Has Yet to be Achieved]


End file.
